INSTRUCTOR: ELLIOT LAVINE
TUESDAYS, JANUARY 16–FEBRUARY 20 (EVERY TUESDAY FOR SIX WEEKS)
7–8:30 P.M.
SVAC member: $140; Non-member: $175
Ages 16+
This exciting six-week class will highlight a group of Hollywood films produced during the chaotic decade of the 1930s, a time when the Great Depression was in full swing, paralyzing an entire nation in many dehumanizing ways. The films we’ll be watching and discussing will take on a variety of societal issues (crime, poverty and homelessness, media exploitation, lynch law, drug addiction, prostitution, and political corruption) and tackle them with uncharacteristic (by conventional 30s Hollywood standards) vigor and a relentless sense of civic responsibility, providing audiences, then and even now, with a cinematic flurry of wildly subversive, popular entertainment.

Each week you’ll be given two films to watch at home, either through streaming links or, in some cases, in free links provided by the instructor. Then, the class members will return once a week via Zoom to discuss.